John Marshall Law School professor John Gorby has filed a lawsuit against his employer, saying he was improperly punished for what he believes were innocuous comments to a student after class.

The student, who is Jewish, was doing well in class and Gorby pondered whether his religious training—which from a young age encouraged critical analysis of written Scripture—explained why Jews pass the bar at higher rates than African Americans.

Gorby opined that blacks were brought up in religions such as Baptist churches that “emphasize an emotional and spiritual religious experience rather than discussion and debate about the meaning of scriptural language.”

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The student shared some of Gorby’s comments with classmates, resulting in an elevator confrontation in which an African-American student asked Gorby if it was true that he said blacks don’t do well in his class.

She filed a complaint with an assistant dean. The Black Law Student Association demanded Gorby be suspended for 30 days without pay. Gorby addressed the student group trying to straighten things out.

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Gorby appealed and the school’s appellate board ruled for him, removing the reprimand from his file.

But he never got his raise. And he spent $25,000 on attorney’s fees. He thinks the whole episode represents a stifling of the academic freedom that should allow him and other professors to have provocative discussions with students about subjects such as how to boost bar-passage rates that—according to his lawsuit—have ranged as low as 12 percent some years for African Americans at John Marshall compared with about 90 percent for Jews.

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